


Treading Water

by aactionjohnny



Category: The Venture Bros
Genre: Alcohol, M/M, Pool Party, Sort Of, commission, sad dads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-14 03:22:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16031954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aactionjohnny/pseuds/aactionjohnny
Summary: The two Doctors have a heart-to-heart that takes an unexpected turn.





	Treading Water

**Author's Note:**

> this is a commission for tumblr user @heavensong. they're a real sweetheart and writing this was so much fun!

 

It’s that fabled last warm night of summer. The heat’s been an adversary to them all. The greatest of villains, it’s permeated his heavy clothes for months and bathed him in the sweat of a man too old to just take his shirt off for relief. Not that it’s stopped anyone else. Though the sun sets over the Manhattan skyline before them, his dear friend (he chooses to believe) and old neighbor lays in a plastic chair in nothing but Venture-blue swim trunks and sunglasses. Everyone else, other than that poor albino fellow, has been in the pool all afternoon, splashing and shrieking. He feels odd about it, knowing that they’re all middle-aged men and that they’ve certainly outgrown Marco Polo. 

But he needs _ something _ to distract him. He needs another gin and tonic, the drink of British imperialism and American idleness. 

As the sun goes down their friends exit the pool and the water stills to its previous placid state. They leave, off to their own homes and their own lives, and though Byron offers them a polite goodbye, Dr. Venture does nothing but raise his half-empty glass to bid them goodnight.

“Staying?” Rusty asks, sounding drunk. He’s been sipping his awful signature cocktails all day, snacking on salty chips.

“Yes, if it isn’t too much trouble.” Byron’s timidity is met with a careless shrug. It’s better than an outright refusal; he knows Rusty doesn’t always like company. He knows he doesn’t always like  _ him _ . But Byron smiles, leaning back once again on his deck chair, glad of the onset of the cool night air and the semblance of quiet they maintain this many storeys up. He’s still getting used to the noise, the shuffle. The subway.  _ Heavens _ . It is altogether like a different world up here.

“...are you like...I dunno,  _ alright? _ ” Rusty asks, finally pulling down those useless sunglasses and turning to look at him. “You didn’t make some big speech  _ once _ today.”

Dr. Orpheus snorts into the rim of his glass. He wonders why he would ever figure that Dr. Venture doesn’t know him so well. 

“I suppose I am...not so mirthful.” He turns his glass in his long fingers and sits up, swinging his lanky legs over the side of the chair. “I did not mean to bring down your party.  
“Oh _please_.” Rusty waves his hand. “Started out that way.” Nothing sadder than a bunch of old men having a pool party. “Not loving life in _the big city?_ ”

“I feel like a tourist.” It is true. Everything is still so brand new to him. He takes a long sip of his drink and sets it down on the smooth ground. “I am even _ farther _ away from my dearest Triana, and she’s yet to visit...”

“Hn, tell me about it. Sometimes I wonder if Hank and Dean are screening my calls.” Rusty sits up, sets his drink down as well. Inebriated, honest, his words somewhat slurred, it seems he cannot help what he asks. “Is it...because of us? Are we _ bad fathers? _ ”

There is hardly a moment’s pause before Byron begins to laugh. How can he ask such a thing?

“Yes!” he tells him, spreading his arms out, exasperated. “What did you want me to tell you?”

For a moment, Rusty looks offended, shoulders slumped, elbows resting on his knees. But soon, a sad little laugh bubbles from his throat as well.

“That--” Venture chuckles, covering his mouth a bit, “that any two boys would be _ lucky _ to be in constant danger of getting murdered by a grown man in a butterfly costume?”

“Of course!” Orpheus practically sings. “And you’ll tell me that my daughter is a brat for not being grateful for growing up around seances and demon infestations?”

“Yeah!” Rusty slaps his knee, boozy laughter echoing over the still waters of the pool. 

It feels so loud and free. Orpheus wonders if they laugh so joyously, so defeated, that the people on the street below can hear them. They’ll think: _ that’s the sound of two old men giving up on their own pride _ . 

“Please--” Rusty begs through his hiccuping, “tell me I’m not the only dad who had a basement full of clones!” 

In their fit, they buckle, double over on their chairs, holding tight onto their bellies as if that will stop the cramping. Rusty claps his hands, because he is the type to do that when he laughs. He slaps his own knee, he-- he rests his hand on Orpheus’s knee, holding on as if he’ll fall right onto the floor.

“You’ll kill me--” Byron wheezes, settling his hand atop Venture’s.

Swiftly does their laughter die out, quiet in its last few gasps. And then what are they left with, really? Silence, and their hands pressed. Neither of them makes any attempt to move. An earnestness washes over Rusty’s face.

“...I’m worse than you,” he tells him, turning his palm upward, folding his fingers around his. “Triana...knows you love her, at least.”

“Don’t be a fool…” He wants to tell him the boys know the truth, despite it all. He wants to tell him that it’s not too late to fix everything he’s done, not too late to call them up and apologize for all the terror and trauma. But he doesn’t. He’s in too good of a mood to turn their jubilance into sobbing. He grins wide, squeezing Rusty’s fingers. “Would you like to...jump in?” He tilts his head toward the pool.

Venture is only quiet for a few seconds, a look of gentle surprise on his face before he echoes Orpheus’s devious smile.

“Last one there’s a rotten egg--” He leaps to his feet and begins to sloppily run.

“N-not fair! I’m still dressed!” Byron tears at his collar, his buttons, stripping down to his underpants and he stumbles toward the pool. Rusty, standing on the edge,  _ of course _ pulls him down into the water with no warning. “Ah--!”

The splash they make is quickly muted as he’s plunged beneath the water, eyes wide open from the surprise. He can see, through the stinging of chlorine, that Venture is grinning still, quite pleased with himself. Once they come up for air he gasps.

“You--” Drunk, giddy, feeling like a child, he places his large hand on Rusty’s bald head and pushes him beneath the water once again. Rusty fights him a little, sinewy hands grasping at his bare stomach as if to tickle or disarm him. It works so easily, he’s so weak for the rare bout of joy, of fun. He slides his arms beneath Rusty’s to lift him out of the water. “That’s what you get!”

And once again, they’re left in near-silence, peppered only with their panting and the remnants of their laughter. And then they’re just two men, arms overlapping, feet kicking gently to keep them afloat. 

His mind is made up quite quickly, when he feels wet lips on his own. He decides right then that it is simply the product of drunkenness, of lonesomeness, of the thrill of their play-fighting. But it goes on, and on, in earnest. Deepening, until they’re chest-to-chest and drifting toward one of the walls of the pool. He feels thin fingers in his hair, he feels the skinny ribs of a man whose diet is mostly liquor. He feels himself enthused, captivated,  _ happy _ . He feels finally secure, finally aware that yes,  _ yes _ , they’re friends. Even if they have an odd way of showing it, even if they’ve gone from zero-to-sixty in so short a time.

It ends slowly, tapering off into soft, languid pecks, until Rusty rests his face in the crook of his neck. They say nothing for quite some time. In the middle of the incline toward the deep end of the pool, their feet just reach the bottom, and they’re steady. Embracing and silent once again, rocked by the residual waves of their movement through the water.

Byron slides his hand down the back of Rusty’s head like a comfort. Because he cannot lie to him and tell him he’s done nothing wrong in all his life, and that their redemption is guaranteed. They are both bad men in their own right, but  _ this, _ at least...This at least feels pure and good. Sincere and  _ necessary _ . He exhales as if for the first time in hours.

“...we do not need to talk about it,” Orpheus mumbles.

“Good…” They don’t need to decide just yet, what it meant, what it means. If it’s the endgame of their drunken sorrow or a long-unspoken inevitability. For a while they stay there, suspended, skin-to-skin, breathing in the temperature-regulated water, enjoying the distant sounds of the city. Car horns so far away. Traffic and shouting. They _ live _ here now. 

When finally they drift away from one another, Byron is pleased to see a smile on Venture’s face, still.

“Don’t think you’ve won,” Rusty says, treading away. He flattens his hands and drives them into the water, a wave barrelling through the pool to splash Byron in full.

“Have you forgotten I’m magic?” he asks, swimming forward and bringing with him a sizeable surf, manipulated by his enchanted hands.

If they could not do well by their children, perhaps it is because they haven’t quite grown up themselves.

**Author's Note:**

> commission me @ kiteandslots on tumblr, if you like what you see! again a big thank-you to my commissioner for introducing me to this ship!


End file.
